Fresh Perspective

 As many of you already know, tension in Lebanon is on the rise.  This matches the look that many of you gave us this summer as we traveled the United States and were given many eyebrows rising and dropped jaws opening.  All summer long we repeated the same story, “Everyone in Lebanon, tells us they feel safer there than their own home country.”  Honestly, we have felt safe here.  Even now with the turmoil that is present we don’t feel threatened, but we are having to be more cautious. Last weekend, Darron and I needed to get to some meetings in the mountains about 35 minutes away.  On Thursday many of the young people had started lighting tires around the city to protest how they felt about rising taxes and many other issues.  On Friday at 11:00 a.m. we headed out and were 10 minutes from home when we had to turn around, due to a roadblock and much unrest.  The sky was dark with all the tire smoke and the air quality was so poor that we closed our windows and turned on the air conditi

 Now the air holds a crispness in it, each morning and evening.  Occasionally, we are beginning to reach for layers to keep us warm.  The leaves are changing colors and the days are getting dramatically shorter.  It is distantly familiar to us but seen with fresh eyes after not experiencing this for nine seasonal years. We are two-and-a-half months settled.  This means we now have cellular service, internet in the home, fresh drinking water being delivered to our door, a car with insurance, residency permission, and a bank account.  While these may all seem like simple tasks, each one took extra effort, learning, time, and help.  The reality of settling in a foreign country makes us quite dependent and we are indebted to the team that helps us arrange all these details.  Darron and I have also begun learning Arabic.  Our minds are being stretched as we try to understand, absorb, and sound out the guttural “haa” sound, (that requires saliva in the back of the throat), rolled r’s and mu